14 May 2018

Beanstalk was honoured to be invited along this week to the Oscar’s Book Prize - an annual prize-giving event for the best under-fives book of the year, set up by the parents of a little boy called Oscar who sadly died suddenly aged three and half from an undiagnosed heart condition.

We were extremely privileged to attend the ceremony which took place at St James’s Palace and particularly excited as one of the nominees was Beanstalk Author Supporter John Dougherty who champions our work in the South West of the country. Most recently John attended our launch in Gloucester to help raise awareness of our expansion into the area and our aim to reach more children needing one-to-one reading support.

To our great delight John's book 'There's a pig up my nose' was announced as the 2018 winner of Oscar’s Book Prize and awarded by HRH Princess Eugenie. This funny book is a heart-warming story about Nathalie, a little girl who suddenly gets a pig stuck up her nose and is illustrated by Laura Hughes who shares the prize with John.

John told the Evening Standard that the inspiration for his book came from the 'snorty laugh' of a child in his class when he was a teacher 22 years ago at a school which is today a Beanstalk partner school. The event was full of the great and good from the world of publishing, including people from a range of charities and those dedicated to getting books into the hands of children.

Here is John and Laura with Beanstalk CEO Ginny Lunn:

Big congratulations to John and Laura and to “There’s a pig up my nose” which we know will continue to delight so many children.

You can find out more about the Oscar’s Book Prize by visiting the website, or if you would like to find out more about John and his books, head over to our Author Supporters page.